


The End of Everything

by ChaoticAnxious



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drinking & Talking, Gen, POV Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Pre-The Unknowing (The Magnus Archives), The Unknowing (The Magnus Archives), really just an excuse to make them talk about their feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:07:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25142887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChaoticAnxious/pseuds/ChaoticAnxious
Summary: The Season 3 crew goes out for drinks the night before the Unknowing.
Relationships: Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Tim Stoker
Comments: 6
Kudos: 37





	The End of Everything

The Unknowing was in less than one day, and Tim was lying on his back in a tiny hotel room trying very hard to pretend he wasn’t terrified. It wasn’t dying that scared him. Tim had stopped fearing death a long time ago, though he wasn’t sure he could articulate why. Maybe it was the dreams that still woke him every night, drenched in cold sweat with the lingering certainty that he wouldn’t live to the morning. Maybe he’d had one near-death experience too many, and he just couldn’t muster up the will to care anymore. Or maybe it was just the slow realization that he had very little left to live  _ for _ . He didn’t  _ want _ to die, exactly, but it didn’t scare him anymore. No, what scared him was what came after they stopped the Unknowing. The last seven years of his life had been consumed by anger and revenge. He wasn’t sure anymore who he was underneath it all, or if there even was anything underneath it. And the prospect of finding out scared him far more than the thought of not coming back. But he was also highly aware that was probably what the Stranger wanted. Fear of the unknown, fear of losing identity, it all went back to that same  _ stupid _ being. So he stayed very still and tried not to think about the future.

Their hotel room in Great Yarmouth was cramped and musty, wallpapered in fuschia with a pattern that gave him a headache if he looked at it for too long. So he kept his eyes on the ceiling, doing his best not to glance at the other bed across the room. Not that it mattered. Jon had left the room almost as soon as they’d arrived, muttering something about reviewing old tapes. Still, it was the principle of the thing.

There was a knock. “Tim?” Basira opened the door without waiting for a reply. “You doing okay?”

“Just fantastic. Nothing like an impending apocalypse to brighten up your day.”

“I was just asking,” Basira said. Tim ignored her. She continued, “Anyway. Daisy’s getting restless, and honestly I don’t really fancy sitting around for the next twelve hours either.”

“And the alternative is…?”

“Well, there’s a bar across the street.”

He glanced at her, not bothering to get up. “The world is ending and you want to go drinking?”

“The world is ending and you  _ don’t _ want a drink?” she countered.

“Fair point.” His eyes traced the edges of the water stain on the ceiling. “So is this just you and Daisy, or...?”

She sighs. “And Jon too.”

Of course. “Right. Yeah, no.” He crossed his arms. “You all go ahead; I’ll stay here and, um, keep watch over the hotel soaps.”

“Tim--”

“Seriously, wouldn’t want them disappearing.”

“ _ Tim _ .”

He sat up to face her. “Leave it alone, Basira.”

“You could use a chance to think about something other than the Archives.”

Tim huffed out a laugh. “I could use a lot of things.”

She sighed. “Daisy’s buying.”

He shouldn’t go. It’ll be more of the same tension that seemed to follow him in the archives, the air swimming with blame and frustration. But at the same time, the thought of spending the evening stewing in his own thoughts seemed infinitely worse. “Fine,” he muttered, and prayed the bar would be too loud to hear each other.

The elevator down was as claustrophobic as the rest of the dingy motel, four people and far too much silence between them. Tim pretended not to notice Jon looking at him out of the corner of his eye. Near-omniscience and he couldn’t hide his staring? But then, Jon had never been one for subtlety. It was one of the things he used to appreciate about him. They’d met back in those early days after his brother’s disappearance, when his old friends were dropping away one by one. He couldn’t say he blamed them; his obsessive research didn’t leave much time for socializing. And if he didn’t think too hard, it was easy to convince himself he didn’t really mind. He and Jon hadn’t been friends at first, not really. Frankly he found Jon’s sceptic act irritating in large doses, and he was pretty sure Jon thought he was somewhat unprofessional. But they were friendly, at least, at a time when he’d desperately needed that.

The elevator dinged to open onto the ground floor. Tim glanced over at Jon, but he was already walking ahead, nothing in his stride to indicate whether he’d peaked into Tim’s thoughts. Probably for the best, anyway. The end of the world was no time for regrets. And if he didn’t think too hard, it was easy to convince himself he didn’t really mind.

The bar itself was nothing much, a ramshackle building held together by duct tape and spite. One of the fluorescent lights kept flickering on and off, casting stark shadows one minute and erasing them the next. They found a table near the back while Basira went to grab drinks, and Tim found himself sitting across from Jon, who was suddenly very interested in the weather report playing on the tiny TV in the corner.

When Martin had told him Jon was watching his house, he had refused to believe it. Sure, Jon was...  _ difficult _ at times, but he wouldn’t spy on his coworkers. And even when it became clear Martin wasn’t mistaken, even when he caught Jon following him and digging through his things, he was desperate to give him the benefit of the doubt. Because recent events aside, he was still  _ Jon _ . Still the man he’d known for nearly four years. There had to be a reasonable explanation. So he reported it to Elias, and hoped that would be the end of it. But it wasn’t, of course. Jane Prentiss had left them all a mess, both physically and mentally. He didn’t get much sleep back then, and time started to slip by him, moving too slow and too fast. Each suspicious glance and pointed question bled into the next until one day he realized he couldn't picture Jon's face without a scowl. That he couldn't remember the shared lunch breaks and inside jokes and all the things they had before the Archive without hearing Jon's voice shouting that he was lying. The intervention was a last resort, a desperate attempt to make him see reason. But of course, it didn’t work. And when they found Jon missing and a dead body in his wake, it wasn’t much of a surprise.

He didn’t realize he’d been tracing around the small, circular scars on his arm until he caught Daisy staring. “What?”

“You’ve never told me how you got those.” Daisy said.

Jon winced. “It’s a long story.”

Tim raised an eyebrow. “It’s not really that long,” he countered.

Jon frowned and looked away. 

He turned to Daisy. “We were attacked by Jane Prentiss.” Tim saw Jon flinch a bit at the name and chose to ignore the pang of guilt.

“Who?”

“Evil worm queen.”

Daisy nodded. “Ah right, I remember that case. One of the nastier ones. You know, the nurses didn’t even die of blood loss or anything, it was--”

Jon cut her off. “ _ Right _ , thank you, that’s very... interesting.” Daisy shrugged, unfazed.

Basira arrived and sat the drinks on the table before finding a seat next to Tim. “What’d I miss?” 

“Nothing important.” Jon shot Tim a look, daring him to argue.

Basira glanced between the two, and apparently decided not to ask. “Right.” She lifted her glass. “A toast. To, um... saving the world, I guess?” Jon and Daisy raised their glasses in agreement.

“Cheers to that.” Tim took a sip of his wine.

When he’d signed on to stop the Unknowing, he was very comfortable with the idea that he might not come back. It was revenge, sure, and a chance to get some answers. But he’d also seen what his friends were becoming. And if it was a choice between that and death, well. He wasn’t going to be someone else’s statement.

“So I’ve been reading quite a bit about this Circus of Other,” Basira was saying. “There’s plenty of evidence of their activity all through the mid-twentieth century. Newspaper clippings, flyers, that sort of thing. But there’s almost no mention of them in the Institute’s library. It’s like all the books just… forgot they exist.”

Jon nodded. “It's possible that’s quite literally what happened. We know at least one avatar of the Stranger can remove records of their existence, no reason why the Circus couldn’t be doing the same.”

“Wait, what?”

“The thing that took Sasha,” Jon explained. “The NotThem. It could rewrite memories, photos, that sort of thing.”

“I…  _ really _ don’t like that.” Basira frowned, crossing her arms.

Jon laughed. “I don’t think the Fears take constructive criticism.”

“You’d know,” Tim muttered.

Jon shot him a look, but didn’t respond. ”Anyway, textbook inaccuracies are the least of our concerns. To say the Circus is dangerous is a gross understatement. And that’s even without their ritual being partly underway.”

Daisy shrugged dismissively. “Not much they can do against that many explosives.”

“I dunno.” Basira folded her arms. “I don’t care how much C-4 we have, I’d very much like to be out of there before the ritual starts. Not a big fan of things messing with my head.”

Tim snorted. “Probably shouldn’t be working for Jon then.”

Jon stopped, glaring at him. “Would you  _ please _ stop that.”

“Excuse me?”

“The-- the petty whining, all the time, as though the rest of us aren’t going through the same goddamn thing.” He shook his head. “It’s been a bad few years for all of us, okay?”

“Jon...” Basira said, warning.

Tim felt the prickle of shame and hurt under his skin and pushed it back, let the all-too-familiar anger take its place. “I’m sorry, you spent a year accusing us all of  _ murder _ , and then you ran off to god-knows-where without telling us anything." He heard the shakiness in his own voice and hated it. "We can’t quit, we can’t leave, and now you can just read our minds whenever you feel like. But I’m supposed to forget that because it’s been difficult for you too?”

“First of all, two of you actually  _ had _ committed murder. And frankly, I didn’t exactly  _ ask _ to get kidnapped.” Jon paused for a moment, his voice becoming softer. “I’m sorry I didn’t trust you, and I’m sorry about Danny--"

" _ Don't  _ say his name."

"--but I'm  _ not _ the enemy here, Tim. This  _ isn't _ my fault,” Jon finished. Tim looked him in the eye, expecting to find the anger or paranoia he’d so often been the target of. But it wasn’t there. There was no malice in his face. There was just...  _ Jon _ . Tim deflated into his chair and stared at the table in front of them. "Tim?"

He stood, and walked toward the door, not glancing back. "I'll be at the hotel."

It was a cold night, and he had left his coat back at the bar, but he certainly wasn’t going to go back for it. And honestly, he couldn’t bring himself to care. The chill seeped into his joints and carried away the last of his rage, leaving his thoughts clearer than they had been for a long time.  _ It’s been a bad few years for all of us _ . When had he become so angry? He tried to remember the last time he didn’t want to punch something-- some _ one _ \-- and drew a blank. Before Jane Prentiss? Before the Archives? He  _ hated _ being lied to, hated being controlled, hated his thoughts no longer being his alone. But it wasn’t not like snapping at anyone who came near him had fixed things. And as loathe as he was to admit it, Jon hadn’t asked for this any more than he had. 

Tim sighed and took in his surroundings. He’d managed to walk quite a ways away from the bar, onto an empty residential street not entirely unlike the one he’d grown up on. He knew he needed to head back; it was late and tomorrow promised to be busy. But he took one last glance around and allowed himself to wonder, just for a moment, what might have happened if not for-- well, everything.

It was well past midnight by the time he got back to the hotel, but Jon was still sitting awake, staring at what looked like floorplans. He looked up in surprise when the door opened, and Tim nodded in greeting, not meeting Jon’s eyes.

“Look, Tim,” Jon started, “I’m sorry about earlier, I--”

“No,” Tim cut him off. “No, it’s-- it’s fine. I didn’t-- what I said wasn’t... entirely fair to you. So, um...” He takes a moment to swallow his pride. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh.” Jon stared at him like he’d grown a second head. 

Tim takes a deep breath. “And maybe, assuming the world doesn’t end tomorrow and we’re both still alive in a few days… We can talk?”

Jon nodded slowly. “We can talk.”

Tim smiled slightly, sitting down on the edge of his bed. “Looking forward to it,” he whispered, and found that it wasn’t a lie. The Unknowing was tomorrow. He wasn’t afraid.


End file.
